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In the village of the mothers
Vénus Khoury-Ghata
‘The wells are kept for the use of the dead who splash the / walls with their silence.’
Don’t Flinch
Adrienne Rich
‘Lichen-green lines of shingle pulsate and waver / when you lift your eyes. It’s the glare.’
The Door Was Open and the House Was Dark
Seamus Heaney
‘I called his name, although I knew / The answer this time would be silence / That kept me standing listening while it grew.’
Bianca Burning
C.K. Williams
‘The sexual terror lions are roaring into my ears as I make my way between their cages’
Self-Portrait as Amnesiac
John Burnside
‘Shoeboxes lined with eggs and empty / pomegranates drying in a bowl, / mousebones and wicker, chess pieces, muddled coats.’
Two Poems
Kimiko Hahn
‘Certainly the tide or the dog striding along the sluff of seaweed, / this afternoon – brown, light green, black green, white and red.’
Why A Colored Girl Will Slice You If You Talk Wrong About Motown
Patricia Smith
‘Their newborn children grew / like streetlights. We grew like insurance payments. / We grew like resentment.’
Waterloo East
Lorraine Mariner
‘On one of those mornings / when I felt like resigning / from my life.’
A Meeting of Minds with Henry David Thoreau
Andrew Motion
‘What am I doing here more than looking – / which I would stop / only to help things through their vanishing’
